THERE are, apparently, two million anglers in the UK – or two million potential voters if you happen to be a cynical government spin doctor in search of a surefire news story.

Alas, the good fishermen and women of Britain turn out to be only one of the obstacles to the success of an unlikely, Downing Street-backed, wheeze to bring salmon fishing to the Middle East.

Take angry Yemeni locals, the feared inbred laziness of the farmed salmon shipped out to the desert after protests about stripping British rivers of fish, and the heel-digging, disdainful resistance of the socially-inadequate fisheries expert assigned to the scheme (Ewan McGregor) for example.

But of course – or should that be coarse – there’s only ever going to be a happy ending for the characters that populate director Lasse Hallstrom’s beautifully-shot but at times cloyingly sentimental rom-com.

If you don’t count the fish that is.

In Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, based on the book by Paul Torday, Westminster boffin Dr Alfred ‘Fred’ Jones (McGregor) is asked to strengthen Anglo-Arab relations by helping consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (a luminous Emily Blunt) realise the seemingly impossible vision of angling-mad Sheikh Muhammad (Amr Waked) to introduce British salmon to his native Yemen.

Fred is scathing about the plan’s chances of success, but after meeting the Sheikh, both with fishing rod in hand, in the middle of a Scottish stream, he’s won over by the Yemeni’s passion and sets off on a journey of self-discovery.

That includes the realisation that his dull suburban marriage is over, and a growing attraction to Harriet who is mourning her army boyfriend (Tom Mison) believed lost on a mission in Afghanistan.

The ‘rom’ in this rom-com veers from heart-felt to deeply cheesy, with the distressed damsel/war hero story an unfeasible plotline too far.

There’s much to like on the ‘com’ side however, with both McGregor and Blunt in dry-as-a-bone form, while McGregor even gets an Indiana Jones-style moment whipcracking a rod and line in defence of the Sheikh.

Kristin Scott Thomas meanwhile gives a gleeful, scenery-chewing, if veering on cartoonish, performance as the PM’s scheming press secretary, barking withering put downs and orders into her phone or via email as she ducks and dives behind the scenes to manipulate the quirky project’s publicity for the party’s good.

Hallstrom and cinematographer Terry Stacey are fond of shots of noble salmon leaping from glistening water, while there’s a rather heavy-handed metaphor where Dr Jones is seen turning on his heel against a tide of humans in the same way one of his beloved salmon forge their way upstream.